The Story of My App

The initial inspiration came from playing with an iPhone years ago. Touching an element on the screen felt so much more immediate than going through the detour of a mouse and a cursor. I had this idea of making a simple line drawing that one could naturally manipulate by touching and swiping. How hard could that be?

Very hard. It turned out that I had to learn how to code. At first I thought it was very difficult, but I soon realized that it was insanely difficult. I spent a month wrapping my head around divs and JavaScripts and C.S.S. classes and finally built…

…this!

To my credit, I didn’t rest on my laurels and finally made something that vaguely resembled what I had set out to do. At last, I thought I was onto something.

But what to do with that something? It seemed as if I had found a solution to a problem that I had yet to come up with. Eventually, I figured out that the only media that successfully combine animation and interactivity are video games.

The issue: I know nothing about video games. So I asked the experts: my three boys, who love to play with their Wii. I usually never play with them, and they were very excited when I told them I would sit down and let them teach me.

We played some soccer game:

It was a disaster.

It was far too complicated for me: so many players running around with colored arrows over their heads. I had no idea how my frantic button-hitting related to the action on the screen.

Eventually, my kids gave in and showed me the demo mode. No opponent, no points, no pressure. All the time in the world to try out my moves.

I realized that that was what I wanted.

I started thinking, “What is the real-life equivalent of a video-game demo mode?” A petting zoo! A contained environment. An unthreatening animal.

You can slowly approach it, touch it, and it will do something unpredictable, but most likely something fun and adorable.

I envisioned an interactive, fully animated picture book, and quickly realized that I was way out my depth for a project like that. I found great collaborators in Design Indaba (a terrific design organization in South Africa that backed the project), Markus Wormstorm (a terrific musician and sound designer), and Jon Huang (a developer and, from all I can tell, warlock).

We went to work and soon created some interesting results. It’s a challenge to come up with something new and innovative in a new medium.

It’s an even greater challenge to design it in such a way that the user will intuitively know what to actually do with it.

How do you create an experience that neither frustrates users with its complex possibilities nor bores them with repetitive dullness? That goal was made even more complicated because I didn’t want the app to use any words to explain what users should do.

I explored countless (but crucial) dead ends, and it all came down to the most important struggle at the center of all creative pursuits: being the artist and the editor at the same time.

As an artist you have to try new things.

You have to experiment, and not care about whether the new things actually make sense.

You can sketch and plan all you want. But, to discover new territory, you have to get your hands dirty and benefit from the flaws and accidents.

Eventually, however, you may arrive at a point where even well-meaning minds won’t be able to get your idea, let alone realize that there even is an idea to be gotten in the first place.

That’s where you have to bring out the ruthless editor in you, who takes that idea and cuts it down…

…to its core.

Simplicity is not about making something without ornament, but rather about making something very complex, then slicing elements away, until you reveal the very essence.

After all the slicing away, you may realize, now that you can clearly see the idea, that it’s actually not very good.

That’s the hardest part: letting go of an idea that, having spent a number of passionate nights with, you have fallen in love with. Even with a certain amount of routine, this letting go sadly doesn’t become easier. The natural instinct then is to rely on what you know is working. It’s unfair, but this is the surest path to boring and predictable results.

The painful and inevitable struggle remains to create in a childlike and openhearted manner, but to be un-wistful and cruel when judging one’s creation.

Illustrations by Christoph Niemann.

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